


Of Ancient Enchantments

by Blizzaurus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby is a Slytherin, Amortentia, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Felix Felicis, Hogwarts AU, Magical high jinks, Marcus is a Ravenclaw, Order of the Phoenix - Freeform, Pining, Second Wizarding War, The Marauder's Map, and other fun potions, don't fight me on this, first wizarding war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-28 23:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzaurus/pseuds/Blizzaurus
Summary: When Marcus Kane first meets Abby Walters, he is buying supplies for his first year at Hogwarts. His dislike of her is almost immediate and there's no doubt that she feels the same way. It is the start of a magnificent rivalry that lasts until the very moment her lips brush against his.By year five he is hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her.By year seven the war has torn them apart.19 years later Clarke Griffin gets the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher she has ever had but can't understand why her mother grows so quiet whenever she talks about Professor Kane.(Hogwarts AU written for the 2017 Halloween Challenge).





	Of Ancient Enchantments

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is almost exclusively fluff. The plot gets darker as the characters grow older.

11-year-old Abby Walters had successfully shaken off her parents in order to explore Diagon Alley on her own when she encountered a scrawny, dark-haired boy pushing a trolley filled with spell books, rolls of parchments, a huge cauldron, multiple packages of robes tied neatly with a string, and an owl cage tottering on top of the pile. Even his arms were full of quills and potion bottles, and he was clutching a wrinkled piece of paper in his hand that had to be his Hogwarts supply list. The boy was looking wildly around him, overwhelmed by the shop windows displaying everything from luxury broomsticks to barrels of slimy eel's eyes, and kept stumbling on the cobblestones while he gaped at the stalls showcasing sparkling jewellery and extraordinary trinkets from all around the world under colourful umbrellas.

 _A muggle-born_ , Abby immediately thought and became curious. She had never seen one in nature.

"Are you lost?"

The boy wrenched his head around, startled at her sudden appearance in front of him.

"Uh, I just momentarily lost the sight of my mom, she is the one who is probably lost," he said and glanced around nervously, dropping some quills on the ground in the process. Abby couldn't suppress her smile at the sight. She crouched down on the ground to help pick up the quills but the boy snatched them in his hands before she was able to grab even one.

"You must be heading to Hogwarts this year too," she said as the boy regathered his supplies.

He nodded and looked bashfully away. Abby found it cute.

"You're muggle-born, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, your mother is obviously a muggle, right?"

"What did you call my mother?" The boy asked, narrowing his eyes.

For a moment Abby felt confused by the boy's offended tone but then she realised the misunderstanding and let out an airy laugh. She didn't mean it to sound mocking, but the boys' expression darkened nevertheless. He turned his back on her and started pushing his trolley away.

"Wait, I can help you find your mother!" Abby called out, jogging after him.

"I don't need your help," he muttered.

"Believe me, you do. It's very easy to get lost in here, especially if you're a muggle-born, that is, a child of non-wizard parents. All this magical stuff might be a tad overwhelming for you."

"Why don't you run off and find someone else to bother? Me and my mother have already experienced enough condescension to last a lifetime."

"I'm just trying to help!"

"I'm sure you might think so," he said and quickened his pace with the trolley. One roll of parchment fell on the ground but Abby wasn't going to mention it to the rude boy.

"I didn't want to be your friend anyway!" she called out after him. Then she turned around, arched her nose defiantly up and marched away in the firm belief that she would never exchange another word with him.

This was how it had started.

* * *

A week later Marcus Kane entered King's Cross station with his mother, clutching his Hogwarts letter to his chest like somebody was going to rip it from his hands at the last minute and declare that he wasn't a wizard after all. Everyone he had seen at Diagon Alley had seemed so much knowledgeable than him and smugly aware of it too, and it was making him nervous. There had to be a mistake.

But if he only would get to the train as fast as possible nobody could turn him away anymore, right?

"It's going to be alright dear," Vera said and pressed a kiss on the top of his head.

"Mom," he whined. "Not in front of the others."

Ignoring his protests, Vera merged him into a warm, tight hug. "I'm going to miss you so much," she sniffled into his hair and Marcus felt tears spring into his eyes too. This was the first time he'd be separated from her. All of his life it had been just him and his mother living in their small apartment in London until some man with a funny-looking robe and a magic wand had knocked on their door on his birthday and told that there was a reason that he was able to make books fly and coffee pastries dance.

Everything was so exciting but frightening and embarrassing at the same time because they couldn't find platform 9¾ and he was getting dangerously teary-eyed in his mother's arms.

That was until they caught the sight of a blond boy of Marcus' age with a similar trolley full of wizarding equipment walk past them with his family, perhaps purposefully slowly so Marcus would notice him and the direction he was heading in. Marcus appreciated his discretion and followed after him with his own trolley, even when the boy seemingly walked straight into a brick wall.

On platform 9¾ the boy introduced himself as Jake. He immediately started babbling about wanting to get sorted into Gryffindor and get into the Quidditch team. Marcus didn't know what Gryffindor or Quidditch was but he was glad to have made his first friend.

He made two more once they stepped into one the train compartments they deemed empty enough. There were two boys already sitting on the benches. The smiling boy eating chocolate frogs introduced himself as Jacapo Sinclair and the one watching slightly apprehensively at them was named Thelonious Jaha.

"I never knew my dad but my mother would've told me if he was a wizard," Marcus told Thelonious when he asked about his family.

"That makes you a muggle-born," Thelonious said. "Me and Jake are purebloods. Jac here is a half-blood."

"Does it matter that I'm a muggle-born?"

Thelonious looked like he had something to say on the matter but Jake cut him off. "Of course not."

Marcus flashed them a relieved smile.

Just a moment later there was a knock on the compartment door before it slid open. The same girl Marcus had met in Diagon Alley poked her head in and flashed them a saccharine smile, placing her hands on both sides of the doorway like she owned the whole compartment."Is there still room for me and my friend?"

Marcus immediately set his jaw as he recognized her, and the girl's face fell too as her gaze met his. She turned to the raven-haired girl behind her.

"I changed my mind, Callie. Let's go find some compartment that doesn't _stink_."

The boys watched with confused expressions on their faces how the girl tossed her head back and slammed the door shut again.

"Who was _that_?" Thelonious immediately asked.

"That was Abby Walters, my dad knows her parents," Jacapo said.

"She seemed snobbish," Jake said.

"I didn't like her," Thelonious accompanied.

"I'm glad you think so, because I can't stand her," Marcus said and told them about their meeting in Diagon Alley, not leaving out one detail of her seemingly uppity behaviour. 

The train ride they passed eating Jacapo's chocolate frogs and talking about how much Abby sucked, Quidditch, the Sorting Ceremony and how quickly they'd be taught jinxes to use against their enemies. After listening for a while and absorbing information about the wizarding world, Marcus was able to soon participate in the conversation too, and for the first time felt part of something. When the train screeched to a halt at the Hogswart station, they promised each other that they'd still be friends, no matter what houses they were sorted into.

As bad luck would have it, every single one of them was sorted into a different house. Jake was the first and got sorted into Gryffindor like he had wanted, and Marcus let out a cheer for him with the Gryffindor students. Thelonious was next and got sorted into Slytherin not long after the hat was lowered on his head, causing the faces of his three new friends fall. When it was Marcus' turn, the hat pondered for a long time.

"You have traits from several houses," it said. "Do you have a preference? Perhaps one of the houses your friends were sorted into?"

Marcus offered his answer after thinking about it for a while. "I'd rather go into the house that would most benefit from my presence."

The hat chuckled and yelled out "Ravenclaw!"

Jacapo the hat put into Hufflepuff and the four friends ended up sitting at different tables, in different houses. Nevertheless, they all shared looks when Abby was sorted into Slytherin.

"Told you so," Jake mouthed to Marcus from across the hall.

* * *

It would've been impossible for the four friends to remain such if it wouldn't have been for the Room of Requirement. Marcus stumbled across it one day while feeling particularly bad that he didn't see Jake as much as he'd like. Just then the door of the room had popped open for him. Inside there had been couches, desks, fireplaces, big fluffy carpets and shelves full of books.

It was perfect.

Marcus, Jake, Thelonious and Jacapo started hanging out in the room almost every day. They started calling themselves the Arkers because as any group of 11-year-old boys would like to believe, their friendship was something so lasting and unheard-of that it deserved a bombastic name.

Thelonious was the leader because he enjoyed telling the others what to do, but Jake was the one most knowledgeable about Hogwarts and always knew something fun for them all to do, making him the unofficial leader. Jacapo had a knack for coming up with new spells and magical gadgets, and his inventions were usually the reason the boys were dragged to the Headmaster's office by the scruffs of their necks.

The most unpleasant but necessary role fell to Marcus. He made sure the others actually kept up with their schoolwork and helped them with their essays. In a way, it made him the most invaluable member of the Arkers because he was able to point out to the academic success of his friends even if they were facing expulsion from a prank gone wrong. (He had saved all of their arses more times he could count which he liked to remind them of every once in a while and earn himself groans and hexes he narrowly missed.)

Marcus loved Hogwarts and everything that came with it. Not just his friends, the Room of Requirement, his wand (birch with a phoenix feather core, 11 inches) and his dear owl. He liked the lousier parts too. He liked the spiral staircase to the Ravenclaw tower that was exhausting to climb up every day, he liked their mad Divination professor Cadogan who saw signs of a brewing war in every cluster of tea leaves he examined, he liked the History of Magic lessons that were a struggle to sit through, he even liked the strange Hufflepuff kid Charles Pike who slammed his fists on the table every time somebody didn't pay attention during his favorite class, Herbology.

There was, however, one person he didn't particularly like.

It was not that Marcus hated Abby Walters. He just found her insufferable.

In every class they shared together they were constantly competing for the teacher's attention and house points, and he couldn't stand the way girl cocked her eyebrow every time Marcus got something wrong and smirked whenever she got something right.

It was difficult to pinpoint when exactly their simmering dislike of each other turned into a full-blown war. If Marcus had to make an educated guess, it had happened somewhere during the second year when their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Wallace had set up a dueling club in the Great Hall.

When he had asked for volunteers to demonstrate the Disarming Charm, Marcus' hand had immediately shot up with Abby's.

"Kane," Abby had acknowledged as they rose up on the table. With the challenging look in her brown eyes and her braid thrown over her shoulder she had never looked more admirable in Marcus' eyes, albeit for just a brief moment. 

"Walters," he had responded.

"Bow to your opponent," Wallace had instructed.

Marcus had given her a quick jerk of his head while had Abby curtsied. 

"Wands in combat positions!"

Marcus and Abby had raised their wands like swords towards each other, and before Wallace even had the time to count down to three they both had yelled out "Expelliarmus!" at the same time.

Their wands had been sent flying, and the duelists had stumbled a step back from the impact of the spell. They had shot each other a disappointed look.  _This was it?_

"Thank you for the demonstration," Wallace had said and turned to the other students. "As you could see from the hand motions of the two duelists, you have to pay particular attention to whirl your wand—"

The crowd had found it difficult to focus on the instruction as they had seen the two opponents pick up their wands again. Marcus and Abby had flashed each other a smirk before yelling out  "Tarantallegra!" and "Flipendo!" respectively. 

Those were only the two first jinxes they had used before three teachers had been needed to tear them off each other in addition to a nurse tending to their injuries (Marcus was sporting a bleeding lip and wobbly knees while all the bones of Abby's left arm had disappeared). 

From that moment it was on, and not just for Marcus. Because Marcus was one of the Arkers, by attacking him Abby had made the whole group her enemy.

Whether it was just a simple enchanted paper plane smashing into the back of Jake's head during class, a joke concoction poured into Jaha's drink to make him quack like a duck or a jinx that made Sinclair uncontrollably trip over his shoelaces, the retaliation needed to be immediate and severe. 

Hours and hours were spent in the Room of Requirement writing up convoluted plans to stick it to Abby, and one of their greatest creation saw the light of the day just because of her. It was a simple, enchanted piece of parchment that displayed where everyone currently on the castle grounds was situated at the exact moment of time. At first, they used it only to track down Abby so she would never have the chance to a surprise attack, but they quickly expanded it to teachers and other students too. That way they would never be caught if they wanted to go sneak around in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night or go to Hogsmeade whenever they wanted. 

They called it the Arker's Map, and bewitched it only to open for their eyes.

* * *

Marcus would never get tired of chasing Abby across the hallways or racing with her to finish his concoction first during the Potions' class. He thought things would always stay the same, and frankly, he wouldn't want it any other way.  But when he saw Abby again in the first week of their fourth year, something was different.

He was helping Jake with Quidditch so he would be ready for the next Gryffindor tryouts (Jake was quite insistent on his aspiration to be a professional Quidditch player) just as Abby walked past the lawn. Jake almost got hit in the face by the quaffle Marcus inadvertently flung towards him after having caught the sight of her.

Her hair was down in wavy locks which made it look like spun dark gold in the sunlight. Her lashes had somehow turned longer and darker, not to mention the soft pink hue of her cheeks and lips. She hadn't grown taller but she now had shapes that Marcus could swear weren't there last year. This was a drastic change from the androgynous nuisance she had previously been in his eyes. 

Marcus and Jake both gaped at her until she disappeared into the crowd. The former decided that this didn't change anything and was angry at himself for letting her appearance affect him this way in the first place, while the latter decided that this changed _everything._

After two weeks Jake had already forgotten everything Abby had ever done to them and firmly opposed Marcus' ideas how to kick off their war this year.

"How about we leave her alone this year? That way she won't hit us back and we can finally relax," lazily leaning against the wall in the Room of Requirement. 

"But it's already started on her part! Just last week she turned my homework into a badger. We don't even need to do anything big as revenge. I'm only talking about a simple Melafors jinx when she least expects it—"

"Why would we want to encase her head in a pumpkin? What use would that be to anyone?"

Marcus furrowed his brow. "Do I have to repeat that she turned my homework into a badger?

Jake made a dismissive sound. "You wouldn't have needed that one essay anyway to stay on top of the Charms class. Besides, she had the cutest smile on her face when she saw your expression," Jake added, causing Marcus to almost fall off his chair.

"I can't believe you called some part of Walters _cute_ ," he hissed. "That's like saying you find the cloak of the dementor stylish."

"But her smile _is_ cute. And she is cute, overall. think I'll ask her go to Hogsmeade with me," Jake said dreamily.

The next moment Jake found himself stuck to the wall with a sticking spell shot from Marcus' wand. The boy hastily gathered Jacapo and Thelonious to an emergency meeting around him.

"This is a new low from Walters," Marcus hissed, placing his hands on their shoulders to push them closer to him. "To use a love potion against one of us. We need to consider drastic measures from now on."

"What are we going to do with him?" Thelonious asked, gesturing towards Jake who was struggling to get himself unstuck. 

"We leave him like that until the effect of the potion wears out and he is himself again."

"Marcus—," tried Jacapo.

"If Walters can get her hands on stuff like that, we definitely need to up our game. I'm thinking of a polyjuice potion...

Thelonious was already grinning.

"...with a hair of none other animal than—"

"Have you considered Jake may genuinely just like Abby?" Jacapo cut in.

Marcus' and Thelonious' head snapped towards him.

"Did you just call Walters Abby?" Marcus asked, his voice quivering with disbelief.

"That's her name, isn't it? I don't see why I can't use it," Jacapo shrugged.

Marcus was starting to fear the worst based on his nonchalant attitude. "Jac," Marcus said slowly. "Have you been... fraternizing with her?"

The boy started rubbing his neck, looking somewhat embarrassed. "I may have eaten with her a couple of times in the Great Hall."

Marcus took a step back as if Jac had shot a hex at him.

"Don't look at me like that, she's actually nice, the nicest girl I know!"

Marcus looked at Theolonious for support. "Can you believe what these guys are saying? Abby is nice? Abby is cute?"

Now Thelonious was looking uncomfortable. "C'mon Marcus."

"What?"

"You might not want to admit she's nice or anything, but you can't be blind. She's one of the prettiest girls in the whole school."

"Amen!" Jake called out from his spot.

"You too?" Marcus groaned. He looked around his friends and felt utterly betrayed at the sight of their apologetic smiles.

After years of torment, mischief, and cycles of revenge, his friends were starting to jump ship. All because Abby had turned pretty over the summer (he could only admit to himself that she was beautiful, he wasn't blind or an idiot.)

"First you tell me she's cute, then you call her Abby. What's next, is she going to sit at our table in Three Broomsticks?"

* * *

Marcus watched in disbelief as Abby smoothed out her skirt before sitting at their table. _Their_ table. Ever since the Arkers had found the secret passageway to Hogsmeade they had sat on that table, never anywhere else, ordered four butterbeers, not more, not less. And now Abby was there with a butterbeer in front of her as if she had the  _right._

"I'm sorry I'm late," she said to Jake, sorting out the windswept locks of her hair. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy red from the crisp autumn air. The sight made something tug inside him. Marcus supposed it was irritation. "I'm glad you invited me, it was about time to bury the hatched."

She flashed everyone a smile (Jake looked like he might keel over at the sheer sight) except for Marcus. For him, she just offered a nod. "Kane."

"Walters," Marcus grudgingly acknowledged.

Of course, Jake scooted right next to her and spent the whole time fawning over her while she talked about all the school subjects she was great at, all the professors who adored her, how she couldn't wait to be trained to be the best Healer of the world,  _yadda yadda yadda._

Marcus looked around for reactions of the others. He couldn't be the only one who still found her nerve-racking. But Jake was looking at the girl like she was shooting rainbows out of her arse, while Jacapo smiled and nodded like she had never even been their arch enemy, and even Jaha was resting his jaw on his palm, listening intently to her every word.

Marcus wasn't sure how she had done it, but somehow she had infiltrated their little group like a snake slithering into the garden of Eden, and now everybody was utterly enchanted with her. It made him sick to his stomach.

Abby tried to gain his attention. "Kane?" 

"Hm?" he said, breaking away from his fantasy world where everything was alright again and Abby was shooting jinxes at them instead of laughing at Jacapo's silly puns.

"I asked if you're going to try out for the new Quidditch position in the Ravenclaw team?"

"Quidditch isn't really my thing," he said slowly, squinting his eyes as he tried to figure out her motive for asking that. Did she want to bewitch the quaffle to beat the shit out of him in the tryouts? Did she want to ask all her friends to watch while he humiliated himself?

"Oh really? I saw you play one day," I thought you were quite good," she said and took a sip of her butterbeer.

Marcus wasn't sure what she was trying, but it couldn't be anything innocent. "Are you mocking me?"

There was foam from the beer coating her upper lip as she flashed him a grin. Marcus eye's gaze shifted to her mouth and stayed there. He grew annoyed that she didn't seem to notice the foam even when he stared quite intently at it. The urge to lean over and wipe it off with his thumb came to Marcus unbidden, but he didn't have the time the examine the strange thought before Jake had opened his mouth. "You have a little-," he said. Abby glanced at her reflection from the frosty window and let out an embarrassed little giggle which caused an odd, tight feeling in Marcus' stomach.

Her pink tongue poked out from between her lips and the soon the foam was gone. Now Marcus was straight up gaping at her, and Jacapo had to give him a nudge to make him stop.

_What were they were talking about again?_

_Oh yeah. Abby was being suspiciously nice._

"I don't what you're scheming but—"

"I'm just trying to be a bigger person than you," she said and hid her smile behind her mug.

He wanted to retort something back to her but the upward curve of her lips rendered him speechless. Only a few incomprehensible words were able to escape from his throat. God, since when had she been able to turn him into a bumbling idiot?

When they had to return back to Hogwarts she pressed a kiss on everyone's cheek and leaned close to Marcus' face too, making the breath catch in his throat. "If you thought this was over on your part, think again," she whispered in his ear. After stating that she ran off, leaving Marcus frozen in his spot.

"I think she may or may not have done something to my broomstick," Marcus said to others, stroking his cheek as if Abby's lips had actually brushed it.

"Who cares? She kissed me!" Thelonious exclaimed.

* * *

In the winter of their fourth year, Abby and Callie were taking a stroll around the frozen lake and talking about the guy they had a furious crush on (David Miller, Quidditch Team Captain, Head Boy and the owner of an utterly bewitching, gravelly voice) when they encountered the boys in their natural environment. Thelonious and Jacapo were wrestling on the ground, the former trying to shove as much snow as he could under the latter's collar while they both cursed and yelled. Abby rolled her eyes at the sight.

"This is why we don't want to date boys of our year," she said to Callie who was watching them with wrinkled up nose.

"At least Jake's mature enough not to—" she started, only to stop short when Jake piled himself up on top of the pair, cackling maniacally, his lap full of snow which he smashed against his two friends who let out a blood-curdling scream at the vicious attack.

"Let's just go," Abby sighed, and hooked her arm around Callie's. The girls turned their backs on the boys and arched their noses up in the condemning way only a pair of 14-year-old girls could manage.

Their steps halted when something wet and cold smashed against the back of Abby's head. She let out a gasp as the freezing slush started to slide down her hair and trickled down under her collar. She snapped her head around, not surprised to that her aggressor was none other than Marcus Kane, the smirking bastard. He had his arms full of snowballs, his cheeks pinched pink, his dark hair in messy curls from the snowball fight. He had never looked more punchable.

"Oh, you're dead," Abby hissed, drawing out her wand. With a simple spell, she formed a ball twice the size of any of Marcus' which made the boy take a nervous gulp. Abby didn't get the chance to fling to his head before the boy had abandoned his load and was now scrambling away from her as fast he could.

The rest of the boys laughed at their fleeing friend and Abby dashed after him, levitating the enormous snowball in her wake.

"Get back here, you snotty—!"

She didn't get to finish her insult because her foot got caught up on a snowy branch and tripped her face-first into the ground.

She laid there groaning, spitting snow from her mouth, realizing exactly why she didn't partake in these childish games anymore when she saw Kane looming over her with a broad grin on his face. He was forming a new snowball in his hands.

Abby didn't even have the time to let out a scream before the boy was on top of her, smearing the snow into her hair. But the retaliation was almost immediate. Abby pressed a small ball of snow into her hand from her side while Kane laughed and smashed it right into his face. Kane let out a piercing cry and Abby took the opportunity to try to wrench him off her by clutching at his shoulders. This resulted in him losing his balance and reeling back with Abby in his tow as his legs were still tightly locked around her.

Marcus ended up laying on his back on the ground, and Abby fell on top of him. She panted, feeling a victorious grin twitching at the corners of her mouths at the new position of power. She grabbed a big chunk of snow in her hands and was prepared to shove it deep under his collar when Marcus' expression caught her off guard. He had a dazed look in his eyes as he watched Abby hovering over him, his mouth slightly ajar, and only after she took notice of the heat of his body pressed against hers as she straddled him, her cheeks were set aflame.

She tried to wriggle into a less intimate position with him, but her other foot was trapped under him and she just ended up crashing on top of him again. They both looked at each with wild eyes. His face was flushed and his hair was in complete disarray, and Abby knew that she had to have a similar appearance. She didn't even want to think what this might look like to outside observers. 

Marcus wound his hands around her waist and lifted her off like she weighed no less than a feather. That made even a more furious blush appear on her face.

He avoided looking at her as he staggered up to his feet and shrugged the snow off his coat. Abby was grateful for this because she was not sure she could meet his gaze either. She didn't have time to catch her breath or sort out the locks of her hair before Callie had come into view at the hilltop they had rolled down from. Marcus saw the observer and grew even redder. 

"We are _never_ going to mention this to anyone," he whispered to Abby, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and stalked off, leaving her sitting in the snow, confused and flustered.

She'd need at least two hours to thoroughly go over the sequence of events with Callie in order to clear her head.

* * *

After the incident, Marcus' counterblows seemed to abruptly stop. He no longer drew his wand out whenever he saw Abby in the hallways, didn't try to race in the Potions class, didn't even shoot her a glare when she pretended to mutter wordless spells while he and Jake practiced Quidditch.

It was surprisingly disappointing. You never truly know how much you enjoy competing with someone until your opponent suddenly just _stops_. She was like air to him now and that made her angrier than anything curse he could've thrown her way.

After two weeks of radio silence, she decided to confront him, and found him at the library just as she had expected. He had a big pile of books in front of him and he was resting the tip of his quill against his jaw, leaving a dark smear of ink near his lip. Abby found herself smiling at the sight.

Her head shot up when she heard faint giggles from the other end of the library. There were girls who were apparently trying to study, but they were more focused on throwing looks at Kane and whispering at each other. Abby felt a twinge of annoyance. Sure, you could easily call Marcus good-looking if you happened to like tall, pale guys with messy dark curls that fall perfectly on his forehead, but it didn't mean he was worth leering over in any universe. 

She tapped him on the shoulder, smiling, deciding to make the suggestion he had never refused before. "Do you want to sneak off to the owlery to duel?"

Kane didn't even lift his gaze from his parchment.

"I think we're little too old for that," he muttered and kept writing.

Abby scrunched up her nose. "You hit me with a snowball less than two weeks ago. What does that say about your maturity?"

"Didn't I ask you never to talk about that again?

"I'll forget the whole incident if you tell me the reason why you stopped."

"Stopped doing what?" The bastard asked as if he didn't know what she was talking about.

"You know," Abby said, feeling slightly embarrassed. "The back and forth thing between us."

Kane lowered his pen on the table with a sigh. "It's just that... you're a girl."

"And now you realize this," Abby said with a dry voice.

"It doesn't feel right to try fight you or hex you anymore. There's a serious power imbalance."

"Somebody thinks big of himself," she said and crossed her arms, but just then Kane decided to stand up from his chair. Abby was forced to incline her head up. The boy towered over her like a mountain, and for the first time in her life, Abby felt tiny compared to him. She wondered how she had not noticed how tall and broad-shouldered he had become.

"I'm just stating the facts. If we kept going like we used to, I'd eventually just hurt you."

"I'd like to see you try," Abby sneered. "I'd have your whole face blasted off before you'd lay one hand on me,"

"Once again, Walters, you overestimate yourself," Kane said, flashing her a tired smile.

"I did best you at the snowball fight, remember?"

Based on his darkening expression, Abby had hit him in a sore spot. He took a step forward, and then another until Abby found herself backed against the wall.

"I let you win," he said with a low voice.

Perhaps he was right. Never more had Abby felt like Marcus could easily pin her against the wall and she would be completely helpless against him. She felt a strange, thrilling knot forming in her stomach at the thought.

She pushed back the intrusive idea and tried to focus. She needed to get the upper hand immediately back to preserve her dignity. But if Kane had his intimidating stature, what did she have?

Abby lifted her gaze to shoot Kane a defiant glare and ask him to free her but halted when she his eyes flicker to her lips.

_Oh._

This was new.

She parted her lips to say something, anything, and there it was again, another brief glance at her mouth.

This was definitely something completely new.

She on her part tried to look anywhere but _his_ lips as she pondered what to do with this new, startling information about Kane. 

Right now she could use it to her advantage. She placed her hand on his arm and started gliding it slowly down. Marcus' wide eyes followed the motion. "Whatever you say, _Marcus_ ," she leaned close to whisper.

The boy was so thrown aback by the use of his first name that he took a step backwards and freed Abby. Abby flashed him a smirk and walked away, feeling his gaze burning a hole in the back of her head as she went. She had an interesting, tingly feeling in the bottom of her stomach for the rest of the day at the memory of that gaze.

* * *

Abby had started some sort of a new game between them Marcus didn't know the rules of, and it was driving him up the wall. First of all, she had started to giggle whenever she walked past Marcus and his friends, and turned to whisper something to Callie whenever she noticed Marcus gazing after her. It had reached the point where Marcus could recognize the tinkling sound of her laughter from miles away, and it was starting to make him so frustrated he didn't know what to do with himself. Every time he heard it he just wanted to grab her and... do something to silence her.

Tonight was the Hallowe'en Feast (which was supposed to be one of the best nights of the whole year) but Marcus couldn't concentrate on the music, the dancing skeletons juggling their own heads or the enormous assortment of candy-filled pumpkins, carrot cakes, lollipops and steaming hot cauldrons of pumpkin juice just because Abby kept glancing his way and he had no idea what it meant.

"She keeps touching me, smiling at me, calling me Marcus...," Marcus ranted to Jacapo who was having a hard time focusing on both Marcus' voice and the skeletons. "What the hell is she planning?"

Jacapo looked like he was trying his hardest not to roll his eyes which Marcus didn't appreciate. "Have you considered that she might—"

"What are you guys talking about?" Jake asked and sat next to Marcus, Thelonious in his tow. Marcus and Jacapo shot a look at each other.

"Homework," they both said in unison. Abby was a big no-no topic amongst their group because Jake was still madly smitten with her which made Marcus obviously uncomfortable, but he wasn't sure what was Jacapo's reason for lying.

"It's the Hallowe'en Feast and you talk about homework?" Jake raised his brow. "Marcus, sometimes you're too much of a Ravenclaw for my tastes."

Before Marcus could call him out for stereotyping, Jake had already moved onto the next subject with a wild gleam in his eyes. "Listen, me and Jaha talked about inviting a bunch of people to the Room of Requirement after the feast."

"So not even our room is sacred anymore."

"Relax, it's just a few people. Shumway told me about this muggle game we could play. It involves a spinning bottle, seven minutes in a broom closet, and hopefully, snogging." 

Marcus sighed. Not even ghosts could compete with Jake's transparency anymore. 

"I'm going to make a wild guess and say you invited Walters," he said dryly.

"Weren't you listening to what I just said? Snogging, Marcus, snogging!"

* * *

Marcus wanted to kick himself for allowing Jake to talk him into this.

The decision to play Seven minutes in heaven was definitely not one of his greatest ideas, but the decision to play the version of the game enhanced by Jenny Jordan and Hannah Yamamoto was undoubtedly something he'd regret even on his deathbed.

"We thought the regular game sounded pretty boring, too muggle. So we decided to spice it up a bit with _fireballs_." The two girls gestured towards a rumbling, wriggling box locked with chains they had at their feet. 

_Oh boy._

Marcus didn't know what he had expected. They were Jenny and Hannah, after all. Some of their creations put even the Arkers to shame.

"The person who puts out the most fireballs with his wand will get to spend 7 minutes in the closet with the person they pick, while the loser goes into the closet with the person the winner chooses for them," the girls grinned. 

The boys and girls in the room started grinning and glancing at their respective crushes while Marcus avoided eye contact with everyone and wondered if it was too late to back out. He wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of getting all of his body hair burnt off, and there wasn't even a girl present he'd do it for. There were only Jenny, Hannah (way too much for him), Aurora (with whom he had barely exchanged two words), Diana (he'd rather get locked in the closet with the fireballs), Mary (the girl Jacapo most likely had a thing for), Callie (who seemed nice but was _Abby's_ friend) and of course, Abby. She was wearing a new shade of lipstick, he noted. He couldn't help but wonder if she had picked it out for someone in particular.

Thelonious was the only other who looked less than excited. "Why fireballs?" he muttered to himself.

Not surprisingly, the boy ran for cover the very instant the girls yelled out "Alohomora!" and the fireballs were unleashed. Marcus couldn't have applauded him more for the wise decision. The first round of the game produced dozens of minor burns on every single player except for Jenny and Hannah (which Marcus found slightly suspicious).

At least Marcus had managed to put out a moderate amount of fireballs if only for self-preservation, so he was safe.

"Well that was fun," Jenny and Hannah said to the room full of groaning and scorched wizards. "Remember, you can get your own fireball box from Jordan & Yamamoto Wizard Wheezes with only three galleons!"

"Just tell us the winner," Shumway said with a tired voice. One of his eyebrows had been neatly singed off.

"It seems like the winner was Hannah," Jenny proudly proclaimed and wrapped her arms her best friend. "I already know how I'm picking," the girl said and winked at Alex Green.

"Wait a minute, I put out at least 15 fireballs and I didn't see Hannah do that once!" Jake objected.

"I think, we, the inventors of this game, know better," Jenny said, clacking her tongue at him. "The loser was, unfortunately, Abby Walters who didn't get a single point. Even Thelonious put out one fireball with his arse."

"That's only because I kept treating everyone's burns during the round," the girl said, crossing her arms. "This whole game is utterly ridiculous." At least they could both agree on that.

"Spoken like a true loser," Jenny said and turned to Hannah with a devilish glint in her eyes. "We need to think of a perfect punishment for her."

For some alarming reason, their eyes turned to Marcus at the same time.

* * *

"Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!" Marcus chanted while Thelonius and Pike were trying to shove him into the broom closet. "I didn't even lose!"

"Yeah, but you're part of the punishment. Stop fretting, you can manage seven minutes in a closet with Abby."

"Most guys would call themselves lucky," Thelonious muttered and closed the door to his face.

"But why me?" he shouted through the door.

"Everybody knows we can't stand each other, of course they'd pick you for me," Abby said with a quiet voice from behind him. Marcus turned around, and immediately his legs pressed against hers. He could've sworn that the broom closet had been bigger than this the last time he had seen the inside of it. Those sadistic bastards must have shrunken it down with some advanced magic or his mind was playing tricks on him.

He felt huge compared to her tiny figure in the cramped space. Face burning, he tried to angle his limbs without brushing any part of her which proved to be impossible.

"You have a little burn on your hand," Abby said and gently grasped his wrist. She brushed her thumb over the aching spot on his palm, making Marcus inadvertently shiver. She murmured a wandless spell and soon the skin was intact again.

When she saw Marcus' nervous expression, she smiled.

"You know, we don't have to actually do anything."

"I know that," Marcus huffed. "And I absolutely wouldn't let anything happen."

" _Let?"_ Abby furrowed her brow. "Why of course, how could I resist Marcus Kane? It's a good thing you won't _let me_ jump you then, otherwise we could give them exactly what they want," she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"I think it's more likely that they expect us to kill each other," Marcus said, clenching his jaw. "I wouldn't oppose the idea."

Abby sighed.

"Aren't you getting sick and tired of this?"

"Of what?"

"This. Hating each other. It's not fun like it used to be, especially now that you don't want anything to do with me."

Marcus kept silent for a moment.

"I don't hate you,"

"Me neither."

"I thought you did."

"I don't, not anymore."

"Oh. Good"

"Indeed."

"It's just that..."

"I'm an insufferable know-it-all, right?"

"Something along those lines," Marcus sighed. "You drive me crazy. I just wish that I could get you out of my head for one second, but no, every time I close my eyes you're there, every time I open my mouth you're the one I talk about, and it's even starting to bleed into my letters to mom. She thinks that I'm besotted with you or something."

As an answer, Abby just gave him a soft, knowing smile.

"Close your eyes," she whispered. "I want to try something out."

"What?"

"Trust me."

"Trust you? Not in a million years," he murmured, but his eyes still fell closed.

He felt her hands clutch the lapels of his robe, and Marcus froze. There was a jolt in his body as he realised what she was about to do, and he didn't have time to determine if it was from fear or anticipation because he felt Abby drawing closer and his head was filling with fog.

With a little hesitation, Abby's impossibly soft lips met his, and the ground underneath his feet vanished.

He wound his hand around her because he was falling, and his only support was her petite body pressed tightly against his. Marcus could feel Abby smiling against his lips as he answered her kiss, and he didn't know whether to wipe the grin off her face with an even deeper kiss or curse aloud for not doing this a lot sooner. How had he never considered her lips before? She tasted better than all the sweets from Honeydukes combined and then some, and the sensation of her fingers caressing his jaw had to be magic that ought to be outlawed because no feeling would ever again come even close to it.

They had to break for air eventually, and Marcus realised that his hands had slid up to cradle her face and Abby's were tangled deep in his hair. They stared at each other breathlessly for a moment, eyes wild and faces flushed.

"I knew I'd get you to kiss me," she smiled.

"Huh?"

"I win."

"Fine by me," Marcus said, and their lips crashed together again.


End file.
